To wrap up 2008, we at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center have created a top-10 countdown to the greatest things biotechnology has brought to our state in the last year. We wish you a happy holiday season and look forward to accomplishing even more in 2009 - our 25th anniversary!
10. Centers of Innovation - The Centers of Innovation Program brings together North Carolina’s best minds in the life sciences to focus the state’s efforts in biotechnology research, development and commercialization in targeted industrial sectors important to economic development and job creation. Early this year, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center hired Mary Beth Thomas to direct the program.
9. Oliver Smithies - One of the Biotechnology Center’s most successful award programs got a new name – the Oliver Smithies Faculty Recruitment award. The award now honors the accomplishments of one of the program’s first recruits, Dr. Oliver Smithies, Excellence Professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Smithies received the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
8. Merck Vaccine Facility Opening - The new vaccine manufacturing plant in Durham's Treyburn Park was dedicated as the Maurice R. Hilleman Center for Vaccine Manufacturing October 15. As many as 400 jobs may be created at the site when the three-phase construction project is completed in 2011.
7. Dedication of the North Carolina Research Campus - On October 20, nearly three years to the day after announcing his audacious vision for the empty Pillowtex campus, David H. Murdock dedicated the first three buildings of the North Carolina Research Campus. The 350-acre campus brings together multiple universities, companies and even a community college to forge new frontiers in health, nutrition and cancer research, which may eventually create 30,000 jobs.
6. BRITE - The 52,000-square-foot Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise (BRITE) at North Carolina Central University held its dedication ceremony June 9. The facility has brand-new laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment, teaching laboratories and classroom space. Through BRITE and its college of science, NCCU will offer bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in the pharmaceutical and related life sciences.
5. Bent Creek Institute - Bent Creek Institute, which studies the efficacy of Appalachian native plants for improving human health, opened the nation's first genetic repository (germplasm) for medicinal plants at the North Carolina Arboretum. The Biotech Center's western office director, Cheryl McMurry, is serving as executive director.
4. AgBiotechnology - This year, the Biotechnology Center took on a new initiative and started promoting biotech's fastest growing sector: agricultural biotechnology. Part of this effort involved the release of the 2008 NC Ag Report (pdf)
3. BioFuels Center of North Carolina - The Biofuels Center of North Carolina held its Grand Opening May 9 at its facility in Oxford. The state-funded, nonprofit center plans to develop a statewide alternative-fuels industry in an effort to reduce dependence on imported oil. The Biofuels Center's goal is to produce 10 percent of the state's liquid fuels from fibers, waste or crops (other than corn) within the next 10 years.
2. Battelle Institute Analysis - The North Carolina Biotechnology Center commissioned the Battelle Institute's Technology Partnership Practice to perform a study on biotechnology's impact on the state. We received the impressive results in November.
1. One Billion Dollars - While competing states are just starting out, North Carolina has invested more than $1.2 billionto the biosciences in just the past 10 years! We made the formal announcement November 20 at a press conference at the Center.
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